Ask Steph: How can I grow my income beyond just selling services?

Today, the question I'm answering was submitted anonymously.

“I've been running my business for a few years, working one-on-one with clients as a PR strategist. And I enjoy working with them and I have some great retainer clients, which means I have consistent income, but I'm also consistently working. 

And if I want to take a week off, I have to get ahead on all of their retainer work and I still need to check my inbox while I'm away. I don't have a team to support me mainly because I don't have the time to hire anyone or train them. And I have the belief that nobody else can do what I do as well as I can. 

I thought about launching a course, but I also know there are so many courses teaching people how to DIY their PR. So I don't know if anyone would actually buy I also don't know where I would find the time to create it. Help! How do I get off the hamster wheel?”

How to find clarity on your vision so you can let it guide you in designing your business the way you want it.

So the very first thing that I want to encourage you is to start to get clear on what your dream business and your dream lifestyle look like. Because once you get clear on that vision, it means you can focus on achieving that and you can start to make decisions in your business. From the lens of, is this bringing me closer to the dream life and business that I want? In which case actually brings me further away. 

How much do you want to work? Firstly, there's no right or wrong answer to this because maybe you love working and it's the most fulfilling thing for you. Or maybe you get a little bit of fulfilment out of your work, but mainly it's a way for you to create the flexibility and the freedom and the life that you want.

Either way is fine. So it's getting really clear. How much do you want to work? Do you envision yourself growing a big team, a big team of strategists who do that client work for you, and then you can work with more one-on-one clients and help people? Or maybe would you rather work with your one-on-one clients and you could serve a wider audience with a different offering or different offerings?

Identify what “lights you up” and move in an intentional way to formulate a business that not only meets your audience's needs but brings you joy!

What really lights you up? What work do you enjoy doing the most? Which clients do love working with? Who are your dream clients? Like who would you really want to help more than anything else? 

So for me, I first knew what I wanted to achieve in my life. I wanted my years to look like my months, my weeks, my days. And I've structured what I offer around that. 

So once you know what that vision you are working towards, looks like. There are a couple of different ways you can start to step off the hamster.

Ways to scale your business without working more hours

1. Scale with a team

The first one is scaling with a team. Now, this doesn't mean you have to build an agency. You can still bring in a team to support you and to take some work off of your plate so that you can focus your time and energy on building out other offers or other ways for people to work with you, or even just to work less, to take some time off, to relax. And this might look like hiring a VA, a virtual assistant to take your inbox and your admin tasks off your hands for a couple of hours a week.

It might look like hiring a junior version of you and training them in a way that you do things, they'll never be as good as you, but that's okay if they can do it 80% as well as you with your support and your guidance and your training. That's all you need. Or you might hire somebody who is already experienced. 

And give them the autonomy to do the client work in your place, or maybe they do the work. You do the final review and you deal with the clients. There are a bunch of different ways that this can look where you're not growing an agency. 

2. Scale with leveraged offers

Digital products are one type of leveraged offer and it doesn't have to be your digital product. Doesn't have to be a course on how to DIY your PR. Yes, you said there are a lot of other people who have the same offer where they're teaching somebody how to teach a business owner, how to DIY their PR. That's okay. It doesn't have to be that particular offer. 

Chances are your ideal customers, your audience, probably have other problems you can solve for them. Maybe smaller problems that you haven't thought of specific problems. For example, writing a media bio. 

So solving a specific problem can be even more effective than trying to solve every single problem in one comprehensive course or one program. 

And it doesn't have to be a course. It can be a 90-minute live workshop where you teach them how to write that media bio. And maybe then you'll sell the recording afterward. Or on the other hand, maybe you will decide to create some kind of signature offer, some kind of signature framework. Maybe it's a 12-month mentorship where you guide them through your signature framework. 

Maybe your 12-month mentorship is you're teaching other people how to do what you do and then at the end of it, wow. You have people that you've trained in your methodology. Maybe there's somebody in there you could hire to help you grow.

Maybe it's a three-month group program. Maybe it's a 12-week course that teaches something specific like PR for podcasters. 

And maybe you decide that you will live launch it once a year and teach your mentorship for 12 months. And there are so many different types of leveraged offers you can create. Some of them will require more time and input once created, like mentorship will probably require a bit more time. 

Whereas others will maybe just sell themselves. And again, you can hire a team to help you with the things you don't want. If you don't want to answer people's questions on live calls, you could hire somebody else who is experienced. You could train them in your methodology and then they can run those Q and A calls.

3. Scale by putting your prices up and starting to work with fewer clients

You are in an industry where there are freelancers that charge a couple of hundred dollars a month through to agencies that are charging multiple five figures, maybe even six figures. 

Where do you want to position yourself in that spectrum? And what kind of clients do you want to work with? Do you want to be working with your dream clients? Do you want to work with the ones who have a massive budget or do you want to work with small businesses that are just starting out? There's no right or wrong answer. 

But I do encourage you to check in and ask yourself, are all the people you are working with right now your dream clients? And where do you need to position yourself to start to attract those dream clients? You don't need as many clients to sustain the same income, which means that you can offer the ones who do pay more to work with you, the very best of you, because you're not stretched thin. You're not overwhelmed. You're not trying to deliver all of the things to all of the different clients. You're working with fewer clients.

If you're doing strategy work and you're finding people aren't taking action, maybe you do need to put those prices up. 

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